A finalist for the National Book Award, The Convert by Pulitzer Prize finalist Deborah Baker is the eye-opening account of Margaret Marcus’ dramatic conversion from an American secular Jew to a proponent of radical Islam. In 1962 Margaret left New York for Lahore, Pakistan, changed her name, and quickly became one of Islam’s loudest critics of the West.

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Quotes & Awards

“[Deborah] Baker’s captivating account conveys the instability, faith, politics, and improbable cultural migration that make [Maryam] Jameelah’s life story so difficult to sum up yet impossible to dismiss.”

New York Times Book Review

“[The Convert]…gets at the heart of the ongoing conflict between Islam and the West.” Marie Claire

“This is a cogent, thought-provoking look at a radical life and its rippling consequences.”

Publishers Weekly

“[A] profoundly disorienting biography…The story [Baker] is telling is like a hall of mirrors in a fun house—full of so many distortions that the truth can come only in glimpses. The life story of Maryam Jameelah seems to have alternately fascinated, disturbed, and unsettled Deborah Baker. It is guaranteed to do the same to her readers.”

About the Author

Deborah Baker worked for a few
years as a book editor and publisher before deciding to move to Calcutta.
There, she wrote her book In Extremis:
The Life of Laura Riding, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is the
other of several other acclaimed titles, including the 2011 National Book Award
finalist The Convert. She divides her
time between Goa and Brooklyn.

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